


Holiday Pines in Piedmont

by zfiledh



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Christmas, Family Reunion, a dash of angst, a pinch of heartwarming (I hope)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-11 02:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8949730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zfiledh/pseuds/zfiledh
Summary: Sherman Pines couldn't resist when his grandchildren extended an invitation to spend Christmas in Piedmont.





	1. A Surprise for Grandpa Shermie

“And you still won’t tell me what all the fuss is about?”

Ben Pines smiled as he turned right at Ariel Street. “I’m under strict instructions from your grandchildren not to give any spoilers,” he replied.

In the passenger seat, Shermie Pines snorted in amusement, twirling his cane in his hand. He suspected it was Mabel’s idea; his granddaughter always did have a penchant for the dramatic.

 _Just like her grandmother_ , he thought wistfully.

Shermie rarely comes to Piedmont for the holidays; he usually waits for Ben and his family to fly into to Florida to spend Christmas with him. A few months ago, however, he couldn’t resist the invitation he received over the phone.

_“Grandpa Shermie, you have to come here for Christmas!” Mabel pleaded. “Pleeeeease! We have a surprise for you!”_

_“Do I have to?” Shermie asked teasingly. “Couldn’t you ask your parents to send it to me by Express Mail?”_

_“Uh…they might not be able to make that delivery for this surprise, Grandpa Shermie,” Dipper replied carefully._

_“Pleeeeease!” Mabel repeated. “It’s important!”_

_Shermie laughed. “Alright, you kids have me convinced. Anyway, I haven’t been to California since the two of you were running around in your diapers. I suppose I’m due for a visit this time…”_

Shermie smiled at the memory as Ben pulled into the driveway. He didn’t notice the small rental car that was parked in front of the house.

“You go on ahead in the house, Dad,” said Ben as Shermie carefully hopped out of the van. “I’ll unload your stuff. Sarah and the kids are waiting for you inside.”

Shermie nodded and walked up the side door and knocked. He was tapping the bottom of his cane on the mat when the door opened.

“Welcome back to Piedmont, Dad!” Sarah greeted him warmly as she pulled him into a hug.

“Glad to be back, Sarah,” Shermie replied, patting his daughter-in-law on the back. He let go and looked around the festively-decorated kitchen and breathed in the cooking smells. “I can feel the Christmas spirit already! Where are Dipper and Mabel?”

Sarah’s smile seemed to have frozen in place. “The kids are in the TV room,” she said, a bit loudly. “Uh, here, let me get your coat for you while you take a breather first…”

He waved her off and started to walk towards the living room. Despite his need for a cane, Shermie could cover a lot of ground in a short while. “I have time to rest later. I want to see my grandkids now!”

He walked out of the kitchen and headed to the hallway. He heard voices coming from the closed sliding doors leading to the living room, deeper than those of his grandchildren and sounding strangely familiar. He reached for the door and slid it open.

“Hey there, kids!” he said as he stepped into the room. “How are my—my…”

Shermie had taken a few steps inside before he took a look at the occupants of the sofa.

Sitting in the middle of the sofa were Dipper and Mabel, wearing their most festive Christmas sweaters. Sitting on either side of his grandchildren were two familiar gray-haired men, identical in looks except that the man sitting next to Dipper had a cleft in his chin and was slimmer in build than the man next to Mabel.

Shermie’s ears suddenly filled with a buzzing noise.

 _I buried one of them thirty years ago_ , he thought before everything went black.

**XXXXX**

Someone placed a cold, wet cloth on his forehead. Shermie was coming around, and the murmuring sounds became comprehensible to him.

“Shermie? Shermie, can ya hear me?”

“What have we done? We surprised him to death!”

“No, it’s not fatal, he only fainted, Mabel. He’ll come around. But we did shock him.”

“I’ll say; I’ve never seen Dad pass out in my life until this moment.”

“Look, he’s waking up!”

Shermie opened his eyes. Someone placed his glasses back on his face as a wet nose snuffled his face.

“Look, Waddles is waking him up!” he heard Mabel say approvingly. “Good piggy!”

“Wa-Waddles?” Shermie slurred. He took the compress off his face and looked around; he was lying on the sofa in the living room, surrounded by people. Mabel and Dipper crouched near his head. His granddaughter had an arm around a fat, pink pig wearing a red and green sweater; the creature tried to lick his cheek. Behind them stood Sarah, who took the compress from his hand. Sitting on the edge of the sofa was Ben, looking at him worriedly. And standing by the foot of the sofa…

“Stanford?” Shermie whispered as he sat up carefully. “Stanley? The both of you…but how…?”

The larger of the two men cleared his throat and said, “Sherm, I’m Stanley. This is Stanford.”

Shermie looked from one man to the other. The leaner twin with the dimpled chin raised his hand and wiggled six fingers in the air.

“Stanley,” he breathed. “We buried Stanley—you, thirty years ago…the car crash. I…”

“He faked the car crash, Grandpa,” Dipper said quietly next to him. Shermie looked away from the apparitions to his grandson. Mabel touched his hand as Dipper continued, “Grunkle Stan faked his death so that he can pretend to be Grunkle Ford and stay at his house…”

“He had a good reason!” Mabel butted in. “He’s not bad!”

Shermie turned back to Stan and Ford, who looked back at him with slightly nervous expressions.

“We have a lot to talk about,” he said gruffly. “But first things first…” he turned to look at Ben, Sarah and his grandchildren. “You knew before I did that _both_ my baby brothers are alive?”

“Actually, Dipper and Mabel knew before we did,” Ben replied as he stood up to give his father some room. “The real Stanford appeared while they were in Gravity Falls last summer.”

Shermie looked from his son to his brothers. _Brothers_ …he never thought he would see them together again after coming home from ‘Nam and finding out what his father had done. Shermie balled one hand into a fist; he never forgave Filbrick for kicking Stan out on the streets.

“You knuckleheads,” he whispered, shaking his head. Then, more audibly: “Are you telling me that thirty years ago, I attended _Stanley’s_ funeral with _Stanley_ posing as _Stanford_?”

Stan nodded. “I had to stay and find a way to bring Ford back. I couldn’t let anyone find out that it wasn’t Ford who’s living in his house. Also, taking myself out of the picture wiped out my criminal record in one go!”

“Bring Ford back?” Shermie repeated. He looked at Ford. “What happened to _you_?”

Ford tugged at the neck of his sweater before replying, “I got sucked into another dimension until Stan brought me back thirty years later.”

Shermie snorted. “Really? Don’t give me some sci-fi mumbo-jumbo Stanford, I’m your brother. You can tell me the truth; you at least owe me that after disappearing on us for thirty years.”

Stan and Ford looked at each other.

“He doesn’t believe it,” Mabel whispered. Dipper could only shrug as he looked at his Grunkles.

Ford let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his head. “The truth is,” he said hesitantly. “I…I made a mistake. I trusted someone and they turned out to be a monster.”

“Not literal!” Stan added. He gave Dipper and Mabel a warning look when he saw them open their mouths to butt in.

“I got that,” Shermie said drily.

“They made my life hell,” Ford continued, placing his hands behind his back. “I was in a bad place; I couldn’t eat or sleep. I become paranoid like you wouldn’t believe. Finally, I reached out to Stan for help.”

“And made things worse,” Stan muttered, looking down at his feet.

“We were in no fit state to help anyone,” said Ford, looking sadly at Stan. “And then there’s ten years of unresolved issues between us. Naturally, we ended up fighting. And because of that fight, I…I was…”

“Gone. Lost somewhere and I…found myself alone at his house with no idea where he went,” said Stan. “It’s more complicated than that, but that’s about the gist of it.”

“Gone?” repeated Shermie. “Wait, where did you go Stanford? Were you kidnapped?”

“More accurately, I went into hiding from the ‘monster’ I told you about,” Ford said grimly. “He went after me for thirty years.”

Shermie leaned forward, staring at Ford. “You were being followed…is he still following you now?” He turned to take a peek between the curtains, half-expecting some hooded stranger standing outside his son’s house.

“No,” Ford said firmly. “He’s gone now.”

Shermie turned back to him. “Gone?”

Ford nodded. “Absolutely gone. And it’s thanks to Stan here that we—I’m free of them.”

Shermie raised an eyebrow and looked at Stan. “Do I _want_ to know how you got rid of Ford’s stalker?”

Stan raised his hands. “It’s not what you think. Perfectly legal! Scout’s honor!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Shermie muttered. “And I know you never became a Scout, Stanley.”

Shermie stared at his brothers again, with another feeling replacing the confusion he had when he woke up.

“So, that’s the truth?” he asked quietly.

Ford nodded. “With some omissions here and there, for, uh…”

“Classified!” Stan added. “Classified reasons. We— _they_ told us not to give out too many details and…”

“Never mind all that!” supplied Mabel.

“That’s pretty much it,” agreed Dipper.

Shermie sighed and adjusted his position on the sofa to a regular sitting position.

“Are you two going to sit down?” he asked quietly. “You look like you’re about to bolt from Ben’s house for some reason.”

“No we’re not,” Stan mumbled as he followed his twin to sit on the Lie-Me-Down chairs across the sofa. Meanwhile, Dipper and Mabel sat down on either side of their grandfather. Waddles trotted to lie down by Mabel’s feet.

“What I want to know is: why didn’t either of you call _me_?” Shermie asked. He wasn’t able to hide the crack in his voice. “Stanford, I know Ma gave you my number after you graduated from Backupsmore. You could have reached out to me, and I would have made the trip from California to Oregon to help you! Ruth would have understood!”

Ford looked stunned. “Shermie, I—”

“And Stanley, I know we haven’t seen each other since I was shipped off to ‘Nam,” Shermie continued. “I know you’ve been calling Ma on her hotline to keep her from worrying. I told her to tell you where I was and how to contact me! I wanted to help you since I found out that Filbrick kicked you out. Didn’t you get it?” He ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “Good gravy, I just realized that you only called me _once_ to tell me about your own funeral arrangements!”

“Dad…” Ben said in concern; his father was getting louder. He was afraid it was going to scare the kids, but he didn’t need to worry. Beside him, Mabel and Dipper reached out to take each of Shermie’s hand and give him a reassuring squeeze.

“Shermie, we’re sorry,” said Ford. “Honestly, we didn’t do it on purpose! My only excuse at the time was that I was mentally in a bad place. I was out of my mind.”

“And I was still thinking I couldn’t face any one of you until I became rich,” Stan shared flatly. “Ma did give me your address and number, but I was—I didn’t know how you’d react if I showed up on your front doorstep…”

“You knuckleheads.”

Stan and Ford stared at their older brother, who lifted himself off the sofa with his cane.

“Yes, the both of you!” he said gruffly. “You worried the HELL out of me for over forty years and didn’t think to try to reach out to me?! Especially _you_ , Stanley,” he said, pointing a finger at his youngest brother. “You had me fooled until you came here when the kids were born! You slipped up and forgot to wear mittens like you did at your ‘funeral’. I counted five fingers while you were holding my grandkids. Do you have any idea what I thought when I realized that you were Stanley all this time? I mean, when you asked me to start calling you ‘Stan’ I thought ‘Stanford’ was having some kind of guilt-trip crisis! I didn’t know how to broach the subject with you until now!”

“If it makes you feel any better, you were pretty fast for a guy who needs a cane to walk around,” Stan offered meekly. “Ya cornered me before I reached the elevators and made off with the kids.”

“Oh please,” Shermie scoffed, using his cane to tap his brother’s leg lightly. “You stopped running when Mabel started crying.”

He sighed out loud and said softly. “The point is: I would have helped you…both of you. You shouldn’t have left me out when you needed it most. I understand if it’s some kind of twin thing between you, but…” He paused to look at Stan. “I’m not Filbrick; I’m your brother!”

Stan and Ford looked at each other.

“We’re so sorry, Shermie,” said Ford, rising from his seat. “I can’t explain why we didn’t think to tell you. The best explanation we could give you is that we didn’t want you to worry. This was our mess, and we’d rather clean it up than bother you with it.”

“And I didn’t want to disturb you and your family life,” said Stan, standing up as well. “I’m the family screw-up, remember?”

“As far as I’m concerned, Filbrick messed up your lives when he kicked you out of the house,” Shermie said gruffly. He looked at his brothers and spread out his arms. “C’mere, ya gremlins,” he said, smiling. “We’ve got some more catching up to do.”

He nearly lost his balance when his brothers walked forward and embraced him.

Later, Shermie would thank his grandchildren for setting up the best Christmas surprise he ever received.


	2. A Tale of One Shermie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermie shares his side of the Pines family lore.

Ben slid open the door to the living room and blinked.

“Seems like Mabel’s sleepover skillset is being put to good use,” he said, sounding impressed.

Some of the furniture were rearranged in order to accommodate two sleeping bags next to the sofa. After dinner, the kids managed to convince all three Pines brothers to have a “sleepover” in one room. The kids raided the linen closet in order to add a camping ambience to the room by tying them together and making a tent over the sofa and the sleeping bags.

“Hey! She had help!” Dipper declared as he handed the box to his grandfather sitting on the sofa.

“Dad, can we borrow the fondue fountain?” Mabel asked. She was sitting between Stan and Ford on the sleeping bags. Waddles was snuggling next to Stan, who was scratching that hard-to-reach spot behind the pig’s neck.

“Sweetie, we already discussed this,” Ben said firmly, lifting a portion of blanket and settling down by the foot of the sleeping bags. “No sweets after you brushed your teeth.”

“But how are we gonna make smores?” Mabel asked as she raised a large bag of marshmallows into the air.

“Mabel, you won’t be able to sleep if you have any more sugar at this hour.” Ben looked at the box on Shermie’s lap. “What’s that you have there, Dad?”

Shermie placed a hand on the top. “It’s a box of pictures that Ma—your Grandma—gave to me before she passed away,” he said gruffly. “I’ve been meaning to set them in a nice photo album, but I kept putting it off and hid them somewhere in the house. When you told me you and Sarah were expecting twins, I went and found the box again.”

He looked up and smiled at Dipper and Mabel. “Since you were born, I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to share this with you. I even started planning on what to tell Stan—when I thought he was Ford—when I decide to get around to it. When you kids called me over here, I decided today would be the perfect time.” Shermie started to chuckle. “I never thought you’d surprise _me_!”

Stan and Ford chuckled.

“Our timing is impeccable,” Dipper said proudly. He turned to Mabel and pumped fists with her. “BOOSH!”

“We could have had this reunion earlier, but we got stuck in Greenland,” Ford explained. “After that, Dipper and Mabel started booking our schedule months ago.”

“ _Everyone’s_ schedule,” Ben emphasized as Shermie opened the box and picked up the first picture.

“OH MY GOSH, BABY GRUNKLES!” Mabel squealed as she crept up close to look at it. It was a picture of a young boy in a checkered shirt sitting between two chubby babies wearing poofy onesies and bonnets. “You guys were so CUTE! Look Dipper: GRUNKLETS!”

“Of course we were babies! Didja think we were born with grey hair and a grudge against the world?” asked Stan.

The younger twins looked at each other.

“Yes,” said Mabel.

“Definitely,” said Dipper.

“Absolutely!” Mabel added.

“Hey!” Ford said in mock indignation.

“I can confirm that they used to be wrinkly when they were brought home from the hospital, but then they smoothed out,” said Shermie, chuckling. “The wrinkles you see now are permanent.”

“YOU’RE WRINKLY!” Stan yelled, throwing a pillow at Shermie. Shermie ducked and continued chortling. Dipper and Mabel started cheering.

“Wrinklier than the both of us combined,” Ford added. He turned around at Stan’s “High-six!” and slapped his hand.

“Dad was right; Dipper does look kind of like the two of you when you were babies,” Ben commented, taking a closer look at the picture. “Good thing he inherited Sarah’s nose!”

“A small mercy,” Shermie chuckled. “Ma used to tell me that I kept wishing for a baby brother so hard, I got two of ‘em.”

More pictures came out of the box: Shermie making faces at the babies to make them laugh. Shermie play-wrestling with 3-year-old Stan and Ford in the living room (little Stan had Shermie in a headlock). All three of them with their faces covered in ice cream. Another picture of all three of them standing near a crater with their hair standing on end (“I miscalculated mixing together the contents of the fireworks before Stan dumped it into the campfire,” Ford explained.) But then, there were less pictures of all three of them as they got older. More pictures of Stan and Ford together. Pictures of Shermie standing next to his prom date wearing a checkered suit and graduating from high school.

Ford picked one picture from the box and stared at it. It was a picture of two shirtless, sunburned boys standing on a wreck of a sailboat. Painted on the side were the words “STAN O’ WAR”.

“I thought I had the only copy of this picture,” Ford said in surprise, showing it to Stan.

“Ma made a duplicate of it when she found the film,” Shermie explained. “You were so excited with your discovery, you raced back home and dragged me out to the beach to take your picture. You were lucky I was home from college!”

“It _was_ lucky,” Stan said slowly. “When we got back to the boat, Crampelter and his goons were there trying to wreck it.”

Ford looked at Stan. “You remember,” he whispered.

“It _was_ a wreck, Stan,” said Shermie, who didn’t notice this. “And that Crampelter was being a punk. It was worth the sunburn chasing them away from the boat with a stick.”

“Thanks, Shermie!” said Stan, grinning.

Mabel reached into the box and pulled out another photo. It was a group photo taken outside a red-bricked building. Teenaged Stan and Ford stood on one side, dressed in long-sleeved shirts and with their hairs slicked back. On the other side were their parents, Filbrick and Cassandra; Mabel felt a chill as she looked at Filbrick’s impassive face. In the middle of the group was Shermie wearing a nice suit and a short blonde woman in a white dress and a flower crown on her head.

“It’s your wedding picture!” Mabel gushed. “Oh, Grandma Ruthie looked so pretty!”

Shermie smiled fondly as he looked at it. “Happiest day of my life. We couldn’t afford a big fancy wedding, but Ma insisted we get hitched because…”

To Dipper and Mabel’s confusion, Shermie seemed to choke on his explanation while Ben coughed.

“They were nuts for each other,” Stan supplied gruffly; he was trying hard not to laugh. Ford cleared his throat and nodded.

“THAT is the truth!” Shermie said loudly, looking at Stan in relief. “And also I got drafted for the war.” He looked at Ben and smiled. “I stuck around long enough to see you born before I left.”

Ben smiled back as he picked up a picture of Ruth holding him as a baby, with Shermie behind them smiling broadly.

“That’s where you got injured,” said Dipper. “You must have done a lot of fighting while you were there.”

“Honestly, I didn’t see much action,” Shermie said candidly. “Did some guard duty and chauffeuring new recruits and supplies to the base. Barely there for a year when I walked out of the barracks and got shot in the leg.”

Stan and Ford knew what was coming next; they busied themselves looking at the other pictures when Dipper asked in a hushed voice, “The enemy shot you?”

Shermie looked both sheepish and disgruntled. “Nope; some rookie was cleaning out his rifle when it discharged. Last I heard, they demoted the guy to potato-peeling while I got discharged.”

Here, Shermie looked down at his hands and sighed. “Then I went back to New Jersey and found out what happened to Stan...”

**XXXXX**

_After fussing over Shermie, Ma ushered him to the kitchen._

_“I didn’t get the letter, Ma,” he said gruffly as he carefully sat down. “Probably arrived just as I got flown outta there. What happened? Ruthie told me to get here and get the story from you.”_

_Cassandra’s lower lip trembled. “I feel so horrible, Shermie!” she whispered. “I couldn’t stop ‘im. He—he had Stanley’s bag packed and ready when he threw him outta the house…”_

_Shermie stared at her._

_“He did WHAT?!”_

_“You heard her,” Filbrick growled. He was standing by the frame of the kitchen door. “That ingrate cost this family a fortune! Ridin’ on his brother’s coattails and being a lazy bum…”_

_Shermie pushed himself up from the chair with his crutches, looking at his father like he had never seen him before._

_“You sunavabitch!” Shermie snarled. “Stan’s just a kid, and you threw him outta the house like he was garbage!”_

_“What did you call me?!” Filbrick roared. “You come into MY house, ya disrespectful…”_

_“I’m not the monster who kicked his own son out on the streets!” Shermie shouted back. “What the hell were you thinking?! He’s just a kid!”_

_Cassandra joined in the shouting match, trying to get them to stop fighting. Minutes later, Shermie slammed the door behind him and hobbled away to his small apartment._

**XXXXX**

“That was the last time I saw Filbrick.” Shermie said as he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “It hurt like hell, but I hobbled back to our apartment and hugged Ruthie and Ben and started making plans. Ruthie had a cousin who moved out to California and we decided to move there after Ben’s first birthday.”

He looked at Stan sadly. “I asked around, trying to find you, Stan. Ruthie agreed that we could take you with us if we found you. I heard something about you getting banned from New Jersey or somethin’…”

“I was tryin’ to find my big break and ended up rilin’ the state by selling stuff that seem too good to be true,” Stan explained. He gave a start and looked at Shermie. “Wait, you were gonna take me in?”

His oldest brother nodded. “And then I tried to talk to Ford,” Shermie continued, looking at his brother. “You shut down when I brought up Stan…”

Ford shook his head. “I was young, angry, and full of myself, Shermie. Took me forty years and nearly losing Stan to realize that.”

“It hurt a lot, seeing you two separate like that,” Shermie said quietly. “Ma had to live with the guilt of letting Filbrick kick Stan outta the house for years. I called her from time to time, and even asked her to live with us after Filbrick passed away. And then…and then I got the call from Oregon...”

**XXXXX**

_It was a closed-casket service attended by three people._

_“My little free spirit,” Cassandra said heavily as she sprinkled a handful of soil on top of the lowered casket. “No mother should have to bury her child. I failed him, I failed my baby…”_

_“It’s not your fault, Ma,” Shermie said consolingly, brushing the earth from his hands before putting an arm around his frail mother. “Someone did this to him.” He looked at the man standing next to him. “Any update from the law enforcement here, Ford?” he asked grimly._

_Ford cleared his throat. “Last I heard, they were still investigating,” he said, sounding a bit gravelly. “Though I wouldn’t trust them with finding my glasses while they’re on my face.”_

_When Shermie asked him about his voice, Ford waved off his concern and explained that one of his experiments left him with a sore throat and a scrape on his chin that he had to hide with dressing. Shermie was tempted to inquire what experiment caused the mullet, but he held back._

_Stan would have loved ribbing Ford about his hair and wouldn’t hold back._

_“Ford, honey, take off those things,” Cassandra said kindly. “It’s just us…”_

_Ford shoved his mittened hands into his pockets and looked away. “Force of habit, Ma,” he muttered. He looked at the casket below and asked, “Can you all do me a favor?”_

_Shermie looked at his brother—his remaining brother—and replied, “Sure. What is it?”_

_Ford adjusted his glasses and looked at them. “Call me Stan from now on…please?”_

**XXXXX**

“So that’s how you convinced Ma and Shermie that you were me,” Ford said, sounding impressed.

“And I managed to convince Shermie that my voice continued changing because of the ‘experiment’,” Stan added. “I couldn’t go on copying your voice forever.”

Shermie nodded. “That reminds me: what did we bury in that cemetery?”

“Sandbags,” Stan replied.

Dipper looked up at his grandfather. “And you never _once_ got suspicious? Even when ‘Ford’ went and turned his house into a tourist trap?”

Shermie shrugged. “Honestly, I thought Ford got tired of all the mystery hunting and decided to tap into a business that shared his love for the weird.”

Ford bowed his head. “Shermie, I thought you’d know me better than to display a ‘Ham-Pire’ or sell figurines of myself that burp.”

“I did say _weird_ , Ford,” said Shermie, grinning and holding up his hands while Ford glared at him.

“I rather liked the Sascrotch,” Ben said thoughtfully. “I mean, I helped put the underwear on him when I spent a summer at the Shack before heading off to college. Made for an interesting conversation starter with Sarah before I asked her out.”

“Aww, that’s so romantic!” Mabel gushed.

“Maybe I should have said something when Stan visited the hospital,” Shermie mused.

**XXXXX**

_“Come in here Stan and meet my grandchildren!” Shermie said loudly. He hadn’t stopped smiling since Dr. Terrance dropped by with the news that his grandson was out of harm’s way._

_Stan walked slowly into the room. Shermie met him halfway holding a bundle wrapped in a blue blanket._

_“Stan, this is my grandson, Mason,” Shermie said softly as he placed the baby into Stan’s arms._

_“And this is his sister, Mabel,” Ben added, walking up to his uncle and putting the pink bundle into his other arm._

_Stan looked at the newest members of the Pines family, completely lost for words. Shermie stood back and motioned for his son to take a picture. He wondered what was running inside his brother’s mind as he shifted his stance to hold the babies more securely. Another set of twins in the family; after Ben told him, he immediately called his brother Stanford in Gravity Falls to share the news. He wished Stanley was here to see this…_

_And then his gaze shifted to his brother’s hand. One, two, three, four, five…_

_Shermie blinked and counted again; four fingers and one thumb._

It couldn’t be…

_“Hey, Earth to Shermie!”_

_Shermie shook his head and looked at his brother. “Sorry, what did you say?”_

_Stan rolled his eyes. “I said ‘what kind of guy wears a bow tie to the hospital?’”_

_Shermie looked down. “Hey, it’s a special occasion! My first week as a grandfather!” he muttered. He cleared his throat and approached his brother. “Say, do you want to sit down and…?”_

_As he advanced, Stan started backing away. “Gimme five more minutes, Shermie.”_

_“Stan, I asked if you wanted to—wait, WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH MY GRANDCHILDREN?!”_

_Sarah could only watch from her bed as she saw her husband go after her father-in-law, who went hobbling after his brother when he ran out of the room with her newborns._

**XXXXX**

“I lost track of what I wanted to say to you when you stopped at the elevators. You didn’t know what to do when Mabel started wailing.”

“I really enjoyed the part where Grunkle Stan tried to kidnap us,” Dipper remarked. He turned to his father and asked, “Aren’t there any security tapes we could borrow from the hospital?”

“Grunkle Stan _loved_ us!” Mabel cooed, leaning her head on Stan’s arm.

“What did you think when you noticed Stan’s fingers?” Ford asked Shermie.

Shermie rubbed the back of his head, looking sheepish. “The first thing I realized, honestly, was that I was looking and talking to Stanley all this time,” he admitted. “Then I wondered what the heck was going on: why was he pretending to be Stanford? Did he set up the car crash? What happened to Stanford? Those kinds of questions.” He ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “Again, I probably should have said something when I noticed his hands at the hospital, but I suppose I wasn’t ready for what the answer could be. Or I was waiting for Stan to open up to me with the truth.”

The room became quiet after Shermie’s admission for a few moments.

“Man, what is it with this family and communicating?!” Mabel huffed angrily. “We all need to start talking some more, you guys!”

“I agree,” Dipper said, nodding. “I think we should set them all up with Skype accounts so that they can talk some more. There’s about forty years of missed conversations you guys need to work on.”

“Well, you kids are going to have to help me,” said Shermie. “Because I forgot my password.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagined that Shermie is older than the Stans by six years. Based on fordtato’s computations, that would make Shermie about 66 years old in 2012. Many thanks to thesnadger for the “wrinkles” portion of the conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> The vague but truthful story the Stans shared is inspired from thesnadger’s brothers’ reunion ficlet. This story is meant as a prequel to “Not What It Seems”, but I hope I wrote it in a way that it could stand alone on its own.


End file.
